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It's insane how many people will never touch the multiplayer because of the fear, what should have happened should have. been some sort of "the crossing" style multi-singleplayer merge.

It's funny, I tried to pick up single-player after playing a couple MP matches and it had lost some of its luster. Still entertaining, but MP adopts the AssCreed mechanics very nicely.

Whereas in SP I freely will run across rooftops (in fact, that's a huge appeal for SP), in MP I would avoid that like the plague. Constantly scared of tipping my hand, as it should if I was hunting a prey that's looking for death in the shadows. Cool stuff.

I'll definitely play with you again Helio, I've just got to find a moment between the three projects I'm working on right now to come up for air long enough to do it. And of course that moment has to coincide with you being around. Pesky time zones.

As a side note, I've been having a bitch of a time getting into a game on regular North American hours.

Agile hunting can still be stealthy, people stood on the roof get spotted but dangling off an edge or tucked beside a chimney can still get you a good 600 point kill. But actually chasing someone across rooftops will likely net you 100 to 200 points assuming you don't get interrupted by a sneaky hunter and net the hunter near 1000.

Since kills matter less than points, finesse is paramount. But if you get chased and you know your target is out of sight you can kill 2 birds with one stone by fleeing across roofs to your target you will escape/expose your hunter and close on your target. Still, get a contract who is running about like an ADHD toddler on the roof, peg them with a throwing knife and hobble them then just before they start again peg they with a long long charged assassination, it will be much more subtle when you've had then in your sights and let the target reticule charge up and you'll get a hefty score for your efforts.

Thanks for talking us all into trying this out. I laughed, I cried, I cursed, I sweated bullets. It's like assassination improv theater. All I played was Wanted mode (up to level 12 now), and it's enormously more interesting and satisfying than the single player was (collection-ism, ugh). Definitely go for kill quality over quantity!

Bobtree2. It's the old "how many games of publisher X have you previously played online" usernames problem (I'm up to Bobtree4 for the Battlefield/Gamespy set IIRC). I'm US East too, but I'll try to add you.

I also recommend that anyone interesting in picking up AC:Brotherhood (or anything else), avoid the Ubishop like the plague. No matter what kind of discount or incentive they offer you, the potential support nightmare isn't worth the risk. Trust me on this one.

Anybody know how to get ACB to keep your gamepad selected? I have to go through the control options to pick it every time, in SP and MP both.

I use a DualShock2 with PSX-USB adapter from Radioshack, and ACB refuses to keep it selected. Presumably it does the right thing for x360 pads. I hate that MS has shoved Xinput down our throats and left all the other game devices that use DirectInput out to rot.

I'm close to 9 hours in ACB multi now, and I'm scoring mid-range pretty consistently, but am usually beaten by those with the Poison ability because of the bonuses they get and the fact that they don't have to expose themselves to kill. I love the throwing knife that slows players down, and prefer abilities that can be used on both offense and defense (some are quite clever).

Scoring well is very dependent on knowing when to be a devious bastard and when to run around and climb like a jerk (and the ratio of these varies a lot between maps). I play very little defense, but if you can force your pursuer to settle for 100pt kills and expose themselves, it may be a good idea when you have 2-3 players after you. Sometimes the kill/counter precedence drives me crazy, but that's down to split second timing and lag (especially with smoke bombs), and if you know who your pursuer is you should stay hidden or run if exposed instead of trying to stun. Some players are extremely good at spotting your approach and can see fast-walking a mile off.

I avoid playing the characters that are super easy to identify, like the Doctor with his super-nose mask and triangular hat. A couple are hard to ID by default though (man in brown with a head-wrap), and some very good players use easily seen models regardless (the unlockable Thief with her unique hair seems popular). My biggest annoyance is the dark blue and muddy night lighting on some of the maps, and the 2d pre-rendered character portraits that don't always match player-customized character appearances, both of which make identifying targets unnecessarily difficult.

My best round by far (4300 points IIRC and first place) was on the map with a large centrally-elevated Church and crowed plaza, where I hid out (usually by the corners) and repeatedly intercepted running targets. Staying in a busy zone when you're ahead is great because your target is very likely to be chasing one of your pursuers.

I'm close to 9 hours in ACB multi now, and I'm scoring mid-range pretty consistently, but am usually beaten by those with the Poison ability because of the bonuses they get and the fact that they don't have to expose themselves to kill. I love the throwing knife that slows players down, and prefer abilities that can be used on both offense and defense (some are quite clever).

In which gamemode? In Wanted Poison is not that great due to the long CD and it's purely offensive nature, you are often better off with Charge or Mute (Smoke is a given for me in any setup).
In Assassinate Poison is a good choice IMHO, but it also depends on your playstyle.

One tip for beginners - Stun range is much closer than Kill range. That means if you smoke an attacker, move all the way up to him to be able to stun. This drove me crazy in the beginning.

Poison is OP and useless in different modes. Anything team based its fine as i neutralises the player without them (or their team) knowing, its awesome in assassinate, but with 3 people tracking the leader poison isn't much use (great for the leader though).

Personally I'm in love with morph, I just morph and walk away sometimes, especially travelling groups, but morph and disguise can lead to some awesome situations where all 3 of your 3 hunters get the wrong targets. But i stick to morph and smoke for versatility, I'm sure that will change as i unlock more.

I've been playing Wanted almost exclusively (and some Advanced Wanted with Helio), but this is due to the Matchmaker we're stuck with. Lets gripe about that for a minute!

Why can't I search for ANY of multiple modes or regardless of player/ranked setting, and why must the "play now" player-match search pick a mode BEFORE trying to find a match? Sometimes I just want any match right away! Why isn't there a rotating-modes playlist option? Also it should let you fiddle with customizations or browse the bonuses/challenges/etc while it searches.

The lack of in-game chat also stinks, and nobody else seems to be on voice. It's terribly ungainly to use the friends message system, especially while playing (though maybe d-pad down is a shortcut to it).

DOW2 Retribution is like this too, where there are 7 or so MP modes but you have to pick one to search for without any prior idea of their populations, so I end up only playing the most popular stuff all the time, but at least there you have a custom games browser. The Retribution FFA's are great, but good luck trying to find a game of it by auto-matching.

By far one of my most common complaints with recent multiplayer games is the amount of downtime due to these setups. When I get anything half decent going with these, I'm likely to keep playing as long as I can manage.

I've been playing Wanted almost exclusively (and some Advanced Wanted with Helio), but this is due to the Matchmaker we're stuck with. Lets gripe about that for a minute!

Why can't I search for ANY of multiple modes or regardless of player/ranked setting, and why must the "play now" player-match search pick a mode BEFORE trying to find a match? Sometimes I just want any match right away! Why isn't there a rotating-modes playlist option? Also it should let you fiddle with customizations or browse the bonuses/challenges/etc while it searches.

The lack of in-game chat also stinks, and nobody else seems to be on voice. It's terribly ungainly to use the friends message system, especially while playing (though maybe d-pad down is a shortcut to it).

DOW2 Retribution is like this too, where there are 7 or so MP modes but you have to pick one to search for without any prior idea of their populations, so I end up only playing the most popular stuff all the time, but at least there you have a custom games browser. The Retribution FFA's are great, but good luck trying to find a game of it by auto-matching.

By far one of my most common complaints with recent multiplayer games is the amount of downtime due to these setups. When I get anything half decent going with these, I'm likely to keep playing as long as I can manage.

My only real Hope is that they sort out the flexibility of the match making for AssRev, but as I'll be buying it regardless for the SP I guess I'll just have to wait and see. I Don't expect anything to get patched in that solves our problems though. Splinter cell Conviction shares exactly the same issue, if you match in any mode you have zero indication if you re the only person in the world trying to play it or not.

Guys, if you are making an online game without massive MMO style servers that host hundreds of people have server browsers, it allows people to dodge lag, play with their friends and customise their experience.

This is the legacy of console first design, I wont even grouse about mods as the game is so unique, but really a server browser would mean dedicated servers could be done and then lag would be an article of the history books.... Ah, we can but dream.

I don't intend to buy ACR. One was enough TBH, and the mp beta feedback is unpleasant.

I can't login to ACB at all right now, and it says to check my username & pw which is not helpful if their server is down.

The player-mode "play now" search works a little better than I thought it did, because sometimes it will join a session right away, but if there isn't an open game/group waiting it will still pick a mode and then search for something nobody is playing. One of the loading tips also suggests that you're intended to max your level before playing Ranked. The player/ranked distinction is still not terribly useful, and I agree that what it needs is rated matchmaking AND a custom games browser.

Customized profiles have a lot of goofy restrictions on renaming, and you can't even type spaces or clear the names by resetting a profile. I'm stuck using undescriptive short names with underscores and wishing I hadn't renamed anything (you can't even rename them the same thing as the defaults).

I played some Assassination mode (FFA DM) and it was ok, but the haphazard and reckless style it promotes is not as interesting or intense as Wanted, and the radar has a bunch of extra features that aren't explained. It was very common to have face to face kills that were essentially decided by coin-flip, or a dogpile of players each killing the last one who made a kill.

Just picked this up yesterday in the Gamersgate deal (still going I believe, if anyone is interested) and delved straight into the multiplayer, as I've still got to finish AssCreed 2 SP*. Only played for about 30 mins, but it is pretty awesome.

Did a Steam group ever get setup?

* As a side story, idiotic Ubisoft seem to have wiped my save game. I was playing AssCreed 2 about a year ago and got around about halfway-2/3rds of the way through when I got distracted by some other game. Coming back to it now and after doing all the updates, cloud saving has been re-enabled and it looks like it has taken me all the way back to the point I originally turned it off, probably about an hour into the game!